


i want you to call me home

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Background Relationships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, M/M/M, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Some angst, some implied injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 05:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10802880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Joe won’t say he fell first; he will, in fact, recall the time where Chuck fell in training and Joe just so happened to be there to haul him to his feet.





	i want you to call me home

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for any typos
> 
> @ruinsrebuilt suggested i write something with the golden trio + lieb/grant at toccoa with babe coming in later as a replacement so here it is!
> 
> titled after [trying 2 say by mothica](https://soundcloud.com/mothica/ableton-didnt-save-this-file)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liebgott and Grant meet at Toccoa. It’s during the time when none of the men know each other and everyone’s stiff with tension, apprehension dripping off them in the Georgia sun like sweat as they prepare for war. It takes a couple of days for it to happen, but, surely, the men clasp hands and begin to call each other by name.

Joe won’t say he fell first; he will, in fact, recall the time where Chuck fell in training and Joe just so happened to be there to haul him to his feet. Sobel didn’t see it—he would have given them hell for it—and that was the first time, the first of many. They walk side by side or one in front of the other when they’re marching through the dark; they sit close together in the mess hall and trade pointed looks with the other men when they’re pulled out of bed or out of a meal to run Currahee.

Sobel says, “we stand alone,” and Joe wants to laugh because that’s the furthest thing from the truth he’s ever heard.

When Sobel’s got a meeting with Sink one night, Easy gets the night off. Most of them head off base—as it’s one of the only times they actually get the opportunity to—but Joe’s got something twisting in his stomach, something that’s been bubbling up inside him for weeks now. His hands are slick from the nerves and his heart’s beating fast in the hollow of his chest. And here’s the thing: Grant knows him well enough by now that he easily finds him in his bunk.

It goes something like this: Joe can’t look Grant in the eye for a good few, long seconds, because he’s not saying anything but the way he’s clenching his jaw hard is speaking enough for him, and when Grant sits on the bunk beside him, he leans until their shoulders touch and it’s like the world slips off Joe’s shoulders, then. He doesn’t very well know what to say, but maybe he doesn’t need to—not yet. They spend the night in an awkward half-quiet; two mornings later, Grant opens his mouth to say something. Nothing comes out, and Joe turns away, swallowing, but then Grant reaches out, takes him by the arm, and says, “Joe. Joe—it’s okay.”

Joe prepares himself for taking up a position of utter denial, but Grant says, “Joe—I…it’s alright.”

It takes Joe a good minute to catch his meaning, to understand the look in his eye, and then there’s not a drop of unease between them, not after they spend another night staying up together, trying to put words out that neither of them quite know how to vocalize.

Toccoa goes slow and fast all at once; there’s a war on and the world’s going to hell, but they’ve all got a job to do. When they get on the boat, Grant lets their hands brush together while he squeezes through the masses towards his bunk. When they get to England and find themselves sharing a roof, Joe spends that entire night bitching about the damp hanging in the air like rain that just won’t fucking fall. Grant smiles through it until they both fall asleep.

The next few months don’t pass them by in a blur; Joe is aware of each day passing him by, and with every day that goes past him, the nervous coil in his chest eases up, and grows into something warmer, something that’s taken root in him and won’t let up anytime soon. He thinks he doesn’t mind so much. Grant doesn’t, either: sometimes he thinks that maybe he’s crazy, that Grant’s just a good man who doesn’t want to hurt a friend, but then he goes and does something fucking _stupid_ like absentmindedly kissing Joe on the crown of his head before nodding off to sleep, and then Joe’s heart doesn’t stop pounding for days and days.

Normandy happens. D-Day leaves him on high-alert and on-edge. There’s no use saying that he feels cut to pieces when he realizes that a good number of Easy men are missing when they find Compton and the others, not when every other man in the company feels the same way. Joe’s lucky he found Grant soon after the landing—or else, he would have been like Skip, who had to keep an eye out for Malarkey until he came in with Toye, Guarnere, and Winters.

After D-Day, they got a row of replacements filing into their ranks. One by one, their green faces look so openly outward at Toccoa men and Joe sees it on Grant’s face: he’ll lead his men but, if he loses them, too, then, well—

Wild Bill stops a redhead in his tracks, a Philly-born boy who’s got is head on tighter than a fucking drum.

Grant and Joe look up at the same time—and it’s never the same again.

Babe’s a replacement, yeah, but he’s got Bill’s seal of approval, and his green fades a bit faster than the others’ do. And, as bad as that might be, there’s a way he fits in with Luz and Compton. And Grant talks to him first, of course, because Chuck’s a good guy like that, and both of them have spied each other looking after him in the same way, and smiled about it after. When he’s not with Bill, Babe’s talking with Luz, and when Luz is with Toye or Perconte, then Babe’s with Grant, and Grant ends up walking over to Joe’s table with the replacement in tow when he’s in the middle of bitching about shipping out again.

Babe fits in well. It’s not a usual thing—everyone has their places—but then they get to Bastogne, and Joe’s heart is beating twice as hard when he hears shouts for a medic as the snow comes down in the dark burning with broken jeep headlights and the smell of gunpowder. He’s not always in the same foxhole as Grant and Babe, but after they lose Guarnere, Toye, and Compton, he makes sure none of them fall asleep without the others so long as they can help it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
